Page 231 of Season Warriors & Wolves

Excitement and something else bubbled inside of me. Something fierce. Something like hate.

The snow beneath my feet hardened and turned to ice as I walked toward him. I drew my bow and an arrow, knocking it back, stringing it tight and aiming at my father’s head. I waited for the wind to heed to my command and change direction before I released the anima accisor tipped arrow.

The sun barrier around him broke for the arrow to go through and hit my father’s head. The head piece he wore bore the kill, but the strength of the hit made him jerk forward and almost topple from his seat.

He swirled round, bewildered, raising a hand to his head. Father looked back and forth, searching the surroundings for support. Only to find himself entirely alone with me.

“Child,” he sneered, looking overhead at the canopy of ice slowly enshrouding us inside of it at my command. “What do you think you are doing?”

I strapped back my bow and pulled both daggers from their holster, slowly walking toward my father who found the situation beyond entertaining and had blasted in laughter. Laughter that did not go for long because serpent like shards of ice crawled from the walls around us in his direction.

He managed to evade most but not all, his heavy armour slightly denting where my magic had touched him.

I ran toward him, sliding and slashing one dagger through the sun barrier, cutting straight over the leather band holding the calf plate. The piece of metal dangled loose but did not come off. “One. A thousand more times to go,” I said, rising to my feet again and twisting the daggers back into my hold.

He raised a hand and the ice beneath him rose and morphed into the shape of two large, twisted serpents. “The biggest shame of all,” he said, stepping back and letting the two frost creations launch toward me. “To kill such magnificent creatures as you and your siblings. You would have been exceptional in my hands.”

“We were in your hands,” I shouted, sliding down between the serpents, rising two sharp stalactites of ice piercing through them. Twisting in place and blowing the splinters of broken ice in his direction with only one thought while sending a dagger flying in his direction, too.

He lifted a hand, and the ice splinters stopped mid-air between us. The force of the wind and the hit of the blade against his armour made him stumble a few steps back. The more he looked at me, the more he realised that there was no match. Slowly, he raised his other hand and the fragments crumbled and twisted to form dozens of frost serpents that shot toward me.

They broke again against my shield of wind, the shards twisting into slick pin needles. At the flick of my fingers, they were raining down on my father. Except this time, he was not able to stop them all in time. “Do you like my tricks, papa?” I waved both hands at him. “Can do them with no hands.”

He stumbled back at the impact and a stream of blood trickled under the left arm plate. Stunned, he breathed heavily, staring at me like no father should stare at their child. He cracked his neck and gathered his hands into fists, throwing one in the air forward—a column of ice knocked me from behind, slamming me to the ground. Dozens of them rose and each time father swung his fist, they aimed at me. Relentlessly they crashed against the shield of wind and an odd one managed to knock my body to the ground, bruising my flesh. He still had the blood of a prime, I suppose. But so did I.

I stood and spat blood to the ground, taking the same stance my father had taken. Then…I mimicked each and every of his moves. Over and over and over. Each of his moves were blocked by mine and each of mine blocked by his. This was no longer a fight, but a wicked dance of whose body would surrender to exhaustion first. I’d not even moved a muscle and he was panting.

“Give it up!” he shouted. “And I spare your life.”

“Give it up! I shouted back, unsheathing my daggers again. “And I take yours. Gently.”

He attacked again and my moves mimicked his, except that when I blocked his blow, I released my daggers in the air and blasted a gust of wind, launching them toward my father who was half blind behind the pillar of ice.

I heard a groan and then the sound of metal crashing against ice.

Father kneeled on the ground, one of my blades had pierced through his breast plates and the other through those over his thigh. Blood gushed from his stomach and leg over the shining silver steel, dripping and tainting the ice and snow below a dark crimson.

“You should have trained, papa, like we did. Might have learned a trick or two instead of hiding like a coward.” I pulled my bow while father growled with fury and agony, and mounted an arrow.

The arrow hit him right between a sliver of flesh exposed on his knee and leg steel plate. The another hit him on his hand, nailing him on the ground.

Father spat blood on the ground, pulled the arrow from his hand and stood fully again. The air chilled and the temperature dropped to the point my bones began quaking. The ground vibrated as pillars of ice rose up and began pushing up on the shield roof, attempting to break it. “I hope you have the energy to keep this up for one hundred times.”

So a hundred it was.

I mounted another arrow. “Ninety-nine,” I said, letting go of the string. The arrow slid forward, skidding between the gusts of wind directing it at my command, it slipped between curving hands of ice father had summoned and hit him right between his eyes.

All of his magic died down. Ice dissipated into thin flakes of snow and the air no longer carried the metallic scent of his blessing.

I held my breath, watching blood gush down his face, his yellow eyes flutter shut.

He pulled the arrow out of his skull and dropped to the ground with a heavy thud. Lifeless.

Ninety-nine.

“Ninety-nine,” I whispered to myself, forcing my feet to move forward. “Ninety-nine. Don’t forget. Ninety-nine.” My shaking hands pulled frantically on the anima accissor dagger still etched on his stomach and slashed the leather belts holding his breast plate in place.

I gasped when his hand wrapped tightly around my wrist and his eyes fluttered open. “I cannot be killed,” he hissed so maliciously, eyes glowing a vile shade of rage. “I cannot be killed!”